Tag Archives: Life magazine 1960

After three years of running “unofficially” for president, JFK made it official on January 2nd, 1960, announcing his candidacy for President of the United States.

John F. Kennedy, the young U.S. senator from Massachusetts, had been running “unofficially” for his party’s presidential nomination for three years. Since 1957 he had traveled the country, making speeches, shaking hands, helping other Democrats in their election fights, and building his own campaign organization as he went. Journalist and presidential campaign historian Teddy White would later observe: “No Democrat, not even Adlai Stevenson, spoke in more states, addressed more Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners, participated in more local and mayoralty campaigns of deserving Democrats than did John F. Kennedy.”

By White’s count Kennedy had not only visited every state of the union, but had done something even more important: “[H]is intelligence files bulged with what was possibly the most complete index ever made of the power structure of any national party.” Now, in January 1960, JFK was ready to make it official.

In Washington, on January 2nd in the U.S. Senate Caucus Room, amid a crowd of more than 300 friends, family, Senate colleagues, Democratic party officials and national press, Kennedy made clear his intent to run for and win both the Democratic Presidential Nomination and that fall’s national election.

It was a Saturday morning when JFK made his announcement, insuring he would get good newspaper coverage in the Sunday editions. In making his announcement, Kennedy laid down the gauntlet of the Democratic primary elections as the true testing ground, saying those seeking to compete with him should do so in the primaries. He specifically mentioned senators Lyndon Johnson of Texas and Stuart Symington of Missouri, suggesting that if such rivals couldn’t beat him in the primaries they wouldn’t be able to beat Richard Nixon in the fall. For starters, he would enter the March 8th New Hampshire primary and would announce his plans for other state primaries in the weeks that followed. Kennedy also made clear to Democratic leaders that he was running for the Presidential nomination of his party, and under no circumstances would he be a candidate for Vice President, as some had suggested. Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota was also an announced candidate, having made his announcement in late December 1959. Many of the old school Democrats still believed Kennedy was too young, too Catholic, and too inexperienced to receive his party’s nomination. At age 42, he was the youngest presidential candidate in U.S. history.

Jan 1960: JFK being interviewed shortly after announc-ing his candidacy with Jackie by his side, U.S. Senate Caucus room, Wash., D.C. Photo, Hank Walker, Life.

As Kennedy campaigned in 1960, he would be buffeted by events of the day. In early February, four black students staged a sit-in at a lunch counter at Greensboro, North Carolina to protest a “whites only serving policy,” a civil rights action that was one of many in the South that had begun in the mid- and late-1950s, and would continue through the 1960s.

In May, an American U-2 spy plane, piloted by Francis Gary Powers, was shot down over Russia with Powers taken prisoner. In late June, a ten nation disarmament conference closed after failing to reach agreement on nuclear arms control. In July, the U.S. cut its sugar imports from Cuba by 95 percent, prompting rebel leader, Fidel Castro to begin confiscating U.S. assets and property there.

In the “space race” that year, the U.S. launched its first weather satellite, Tiros I; the first experimental communications satellite, Echo I; and the first spy satellite, Corona. The Soviets, meanwhile, put another of their Sputnik series into orbit, this one with two dogs on board, returning them safely to earth. In sports, the Summer Olympics were held in Rome where a young boxer from Louisville, Kentucky named Cassius Clay won the light heavyweight gold medal.

“The Remarkable Kennedys,” by Joe McCarthy, published in Feb 1960, was billed as “the dramatic, inside story” of JFK “and his remarkable family.”

Among best-selling books that year were: To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee; Rabbit, Run, by John Updike; and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William L. Shirer. The first oral contraceptives came into use in 1960 and Elvis Presley had three No. 1 hits that year: “Stuck on You,” “It’s Now or Never,” and “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” It was also 1960 when the famous dance tune, “The Twist,” by Chubby Checker was first released. Other popular songs that year included: “Theme From Summer Place” by Percy Faith; “Cathy’s Clown” by the Everly Brothers; “Stay” by Maurice Williams; “Beyond the Sea” by Bobby Darin; “Georgia on My Mind” by Ray Charles; and “Last Date,” a piano tune by Floyd Cramer.

At the box office that year, Spartacus, Psycho, Exodus, Oceans 11, and Butterfield 8 were among the top grossing films. And several of the actors and actresses appearing in those films would become active JFK supporters, including Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, Frank Sinatra, and Sammy Davis, Jr.

As the early 1960 race began, the first notable contests for Kennedy and the Democrats came in the Wisconsin and West Virginia primaries – April 5th and May 10th, repectively – both of which Kennedy would win, but not without controversy and considerable effort. Kennedy’s victory over Humphrey in Wisconsin was helped by Catholic voters in some districts, yet his margin of victory was not strong enough in other districts where there were no Catholics. That meant the next primary in West Virginia – a state that was 95 percent Protestant – would be a more telling test of Kennedy’s non-Catholic appeal, watched closely by party bosses.

April 1960: JFK campaigning in the tiny hamlet of Ona, West Virginia prior to that state’s May 10th primary.

Kennedy scored a solid victory in West Virginia, knocking Humphrey out of the race. The win in West Virginia, plus Wisconsin, gave Kennedy two early primary victories, and also gave his campaign momentum, helping him to win a string of primaries through May and June while wooing important governors and party insiders along the way.

Heading into the July Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, Kennedy was the odds-on favorite for the nomination, but there were still vestiges of the old “brokered convention” in play, where back-room wheeling and dealing could still generate surprises and dark-horse candidates. Kennedy very definitely had momentum, but he didn’t have a lock on the nomination.

In July 1960, as Democrats gathered at the year-old Sports Arena in Los Angeles for the Democratic National Convention, there were still a number of other candidates who could alter the nomination process, including: Sen. Lyndon Johnson of Texas, the powerful majority leader of the U.S. Senate, who claimed to have 500 or more delegates committed to his candidacy; Sen. Stuart Symington of Missouri, a candidate backed by former president, Harry S. Truman; Adlai Stevenson, the Democrats’ presidential nominee in 1952 and 1956, and a favorite of liberals; and Senators Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Wayne Morse of Oregon, JFK primary opponents. There was also California Gov. Pat Brown, regarded a “favorite son” possibility.

25 July 1960: Life magazine features happy convention delegates on its cover, with tagline, “The Demonstration for Jack Kennedy.”

Life magazine’s July 25th edition, covering the DNC, featured celebrating JFK conventioneers on its cover with the tagline, “The Demonstration for Jack Kennedy.” But the magazine also reported on the convention’s inside politics and how “the Kennedy organization” was showing itself as something of new political phenomenon.

Life’s writers noted that Kennedy was a formidable figure and not merely some Harvard pretty boy. In fact, Kennedy and his 34-year-old brother and campaign manager, Robert, were, according to Life’s reporters, “steam-rolling the crafty old pros of the party with ruthless efficiency….” They were bringing “a new era of American politics” to the Democratic party and delivering “a brand-new and youthful set of owners and operators….” And of course, there was also something else Life’s writers noted: “Kennedy had the magic essential for a candidate, the ability to get votes.”

On July 13, 1960, JFK secured the Democratic nomination on the first ballot. The next day, over the objection of his brother Bobby, organized labor and others, he selected Lyndon Johnson to be his running mate, and the Convention approved. Kennedy would need Texas to win, and that fact above all else, meant Johnson was the best choice. Closing out the convention at the Los Angeles Coliseum with his “New Frontier” speech before TV cameras and a live stadium audience of 50,000 plus, Kennedy and his party went forward, energized for the fall campaign ahead.

July 15, 1960: JFK at the Los Angeles Coliseum speaking before some 52,000 and another 35 million on television. “Today our concern must be with [the] future.... The old era is ending. The old ways will not do…. We stand today on the edge of a New Frontier… ”

Once on the campaign trail, the Kennedy-Johnson ticket covered the entire country, with LBJ barnstorming the South, and Kennedy focusing on a core of some 17 Northeast, industrial, and West Coast states crucial in the electoral arithmetic.

For Kennedy, 1960 was the final stretch in an odyssey that had begun at the 1956 DNC, where he almost won the VP slot. Campaigning as his own man from 1957 on, Kennedy had traveled far and wide, and he had grown as a speaker and campaigner. He had also learned a great deal about the American people and his party. According to aides Kenny O’Donnell and Dave Powers, from late August 1960 until the first Tuesday in November, JFK traveled to speaking appearances and rallies in 237 cities. Nixon, by their count, went to 168 cities.

By Labor Day 1960, when Kennedy formally kicked off his fall campaign in Michigan, his oratory skills had risen to peak form, hitting themes of universal appeal with new and vivid language, inspiring thousands with calls for a better America. By late October, Russell Baker of the New York Times would observe: “…[I]n the last month he has flowered into a magnificent campaigner with a Pied Piper magic over the street crowds, and especially the ladies,“…[Kennedy] has flowered into a magnificent cam- paigner with a Pied Piper magic over the street crowds, and especially the ladies…”– R. Baker, NY Times and with a considerable talent for what is ungraciously called rabble-rousing.” That JFK was appealing to women of all ages was no surprise, some calling out their affections for him from the crowds. Life magazine would report in its last issue before the November 8th election: “The blissful fog of feminine adoration surrounding Jack Kennedy — the great phenomenon of the 1960 campaign — grew even thicker in the last days of his tour.” Teddy White would later recount one Southern Senator’s observation that JFK embodied “the best qualities of Elvis and Franklin D. Roosevelt.” But Kennedy’s campaign also garnered the respect of the journalists who followed him.“The consensus of newspapermen who are watching his performance,” wrote syndicated columnist Roscoe Drummond, “‘[is] that he is more articulate than either President Eisenhower or former President Truman, more direct and understandable than Adlai Stevenson, and has much of the charm of Franklin D. Roosevelt.”

JFK’s on-screen appearance during the first Presidential TV debate of Sept 26th, 1960 was believed by some to have been a decisive factor.

The key momentum for the Kennedy campaign, however, did not come from the meet-the-folks retail politics of personal handshakes and Rotary Club speeches – of which there were plenty. Rather, it came in a television studio at station WBBM in Chicago on September 26, 1960. For that was the evening when Kennedy’s movie-star good looks and confident style stole the show from Dick Nixon and got the attention of a nation looking for something new.

“I think the most important moment was in that first television debate with Richard Nixon,” noted Kennedy historian Robert Dallek in a November 2013 National Public Radio interview, “when Kennedy came across as presidential. As someone who was poised, who was witty, charming, handsome and deserved to be president of the United States.”

The 1960 election was a time when television gained as the medium of politics; when image began to play an outsize role in modern culture, and JFK was among the first beneficiaries. There were 85 million television sets in America by then, nearly one set for every two Americans. “When that [first] debate was over,” CBS producer Don Hewitt would later say, “I realized that we didn’t have to wait for an election day. We just elected a president. It all happened on television.” Still, there four TV debates in all, and Nixon regained some ground in the later debates. However, old-fashioned politics were still very much alive in 1960 – when strategic, well-timed, or accidental events could figure into the electoral calculus. And Kennedy’s organization was attuned to such possibilities, if only by the help of perceptive staffers.

One of those moments came in October 1960, after civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King (MLK) was jailed in a Georgia prison for a trumped-up parole violation following his participation in a student sit-in. Harrison Wofford, then a campaign aide working in the lower bowels of the JFK campaign in Sargent Shriver’s department, but who years later would become a U.S. Senator, learned about the King situation. Wooford advised that Kennedy should become involved. His idea worked its way up the chain of command, first to Shriver, and eventually to JFK, who made a brief call to King’s wife, Coretta Scott King. Bobby Kennedy, however, was furious about the call, believing word of JFK’s action would alienate southern Democrats. Bobby later calmed down and helped secure King’s release after Jack did some back-channel calling to state officials. Meanwhile, Martin Luther King’s father, who some called “Daddy King,” a prominent Baptist minister,After the Kennedys helped MLK get out of jail, “Daddy King,” a Baptist preacher planning to vote for Nixon, promised “a whole suit- case full of votes” for JFK. was quite thankful for the Kennedy involvement and said as much in a public statement to the press a few days later, noting at one point that he had “a whole suitcase full of votes” he would send JFK’s way. Daddy King, a registered Republican, had endorsed Richard Nixon, and previously opposed Kennedy because he was a Catholic. But now the tide had turned, and the Kennedy campaign made the most of it. According to Evan Thomas, writing in his book, Robert Kennedy, A Life, JFK’s campaign, in its final days, published hundreds of thousands of leaflets and handbills that were distributed at black churches and bars. Included was one flyer that read on one side: “Jack Kennedy called Mrs. King,” and on the other side — “Richard Nixon did not.” Many political analysts believe that JFK’s phone call and Bobby’s intercession on behalf of MLK – and the resulting notice these actions received in the black community – figured into the election’s outcome, as black voters shifted to Kennedy in several states and key urban areas. MLK himself, however, never endorsed either candidate.

Home Stretch

JFK in a private moment aboard his campaign plane, The Caroline, which logged thousands of miles during the primary and general election campaigns.

Toward the end of October 1960, Kennedy was drawing very large and energized crowds, especially in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state that held 32 electoral votes – as many as California and second only to New York. Between October 28th and October 31st, Kennedy and his team made a blitz of cities and towns in the eastern half of Pennsylvania.

Beginning with three morning speeches in Allentown on October 28th, a 20-car Kennedy motorcade then headed north visiting a string of towns, including: Pottsville, McAdoo, Hazleton, Ashley, Sugar Notch, Nanticoke, Plymouth, and finally Wilkes-Barre and Scranton. In Hazleton, thousands jammed Main Street to hear Kennedy, standing shoulder-to-shoulder. In Wilkes-Barre, also on the 28th, an estimated crowd of 30,000 converged on Public Square to hear the senator. These were substantial crowds for small and medium-sized towns. The New York Times, reporting on Kennedy’s campaigning in the region on October 29, 1960, headlined its story, “Kennedy Cheered in Pennsylvania; 500,000 Acclaim Senator as He Motors Through Area of High Unemployment.”

October 28, 1960: JFK – on platform, lower left -- speaks to an overflow crowd jamming the downtown area of Hazelton, Pennsylvania (streets to Kennedy's left, not shown, were equally jammed). The Hazelton stop was among at least a dozen other Pennsylvania towns he visited that day.

On the evening of October 28th, it was back to the Philadelphia area for a fundraising dinner and speech, followed the next day by visits throughout the Philadelphia metro area at eight more stops – from Chester and Upper Darby to Roosevelt Field in Norristown and Snellenburg’s Shopping Center in Willow Grove. More Philadelphia area campaigning followed on October 30th and 31st, including stops at a bonds-for-Israel rally, the Raymond Rose apartments, Rayburn Plaza, and Temple University. Thousands had come out for these rallies, as they did in the rain in Philadelphia, Chester, and at the town square in Valley Forge where they heard JFK summon Revolutionary War history: “Men here knew the deadly meaning of danger, but they also preserved the bright hope of opportunity.” In the end, Kennedy’s Pennsylvania blitz paid off: he carried the state and won its 32 electoral votes.

On November 4, 1960, with only five days left until the election, Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley orchestrated a huge torchlight parade for Kennedy through the city, culminating at a Chicago Stadium event that was broadcast over national television (NBC). An estimated 1.5 million came out for the Chicago parade and the rally. At the stadium, Mayor Daley introduced John F. Kennedy to a sold-out audience, as “the Irish Prince.”

In the final week of the race, JFK’s schedule was truly punishing, traveling the breadth of the country, with non-stop campaigning. As aide Kenny O’Donnell would later write, ticking off the stops and how little sleep Kennedy had: “During the closing week of the campaign – Sunday and Monday in Philadelphia, Tuesday in Los Angeles, Wednesday in San Francisco, Thursday in Phoenix, Albuquerque, Amarillo, Wichita Falls and Oklahoma City, Friday in Virginia, Ohio and Chicago, Saturday in New York, Sunday in Connecticut, Long Island, New Jersey and Maine, and… Monday in New England and Boston – he had never gotten four hours of sleep on any night.” But there were some sights to behold in those final days, as O’Donnell would also recount in two episodes, one in Connecticut, late Saturday night November 5th, and the other in Maine, late Sunday night, November 6th:

…We landed in the Caroline [campaign plane] at Bridgeport after midnight and drove from there in a motorcade along Route 8 in the Naugatuck River Valley to Waterbury. All along the road, for more than twenty-seven miles, there were crowds of cheering people, waving torches and red lights, most of them wearing coats over their pajamas and nightgowns, and at the firehouses in every town the fire engines were lines up beside the road with their lights flashing, bells ringing, and sirens wailing.“…All along the road, for more than twenty-seven miles, there were crowds of cheering people, waving torches and red lights, most of them wearing coats over their pajamas and nightgowns…” Although it was almost three o’clock in the morning when we reached Waterbury, there was a roaring crowd of more than forty thousand people in the city square outside the Roger Smith Hotel where Kennedy was to spend the night…

…Then [late Sunday] he flew at night to Lewiston, Maine, arriving there at one-thirty. Lewiston was cold and the airport was dark and empty. The advance man and the few local party leaders who met us at the plane hurried Kennedy into a car and drove him in the the city without saying anything about where he was going. The streets were quiet and empty. He glanced at me questioningly, wondering what he was doing in a freezing cold Maine factory town in the middle of the night when everybody seemed to be in bed. Then we drove into a park where a crowd of more than twenty thousand people were waiting, carrying torchlights. Coming from the cold darkness and stillness of the drive from the airport to the sudden glare of torchlighted area, filled with warmth and excited people, Kennedy was stunned. “My God, isn’t this unbelievable?” he said. Then the crowd recognized him, there was a roar of cheering that could be heard for miles away.

Still, the early November election polls had Nixon and Kennedy pretty much in a dead heat.

JFK and Jackie both voted in Boston on election day then traveled to Hyannis Port to join family, friends, and key campaign staff to await election returns. AP photo.

Election Day

On election day, Tuesday November 8th JFK and Jackie voted in Boston then traveled to Hyannis Port, Massachusetts to join family, friends, and core campaign staff to monitor the election returns. As the early vote came in from large cities in the East and Midwest – Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Chicago – Kennedy had a large lead in the popular and electoral vote. It appeared he was headed for certain victory. However, after some premature TV declarations of Kennedy wins in selected states – and some retractions – an hours-long “too-close-to-call” contest set in, stretching late into the night and next day. As later election returns came in during the early a.m hours of November 9th – especially from the rural and suburban Midwest, Western states, and Pacific Coast states – Nixon began to catch up. Some newspapers, including the New York Times, had already prepared “Kennedy Elected” headline copy. But the election was still too close to call.

Nov 8, 1960: Election-night coverage by NBC-TV team of Chet Huntley & David Brinkley at desk, with posted election returns.

By 3 a.m, Eastern Time, Kennedy’s popular vote lead – which had been about 2.3 million votes at midnight – had nearly evaporated, and some commentators were saying he might win the presidency with the electoral vote, but lose the popular vote. When Nixon appeared with his wife at the podium in the Ambassador Hotel at 12:30 a.m. Pacific Time (3:30 a.m. EST), four key states were still undecided — California, Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota. Only if Kennedy lost all four of these states could Nixon win. As journalist Teddy White put it: “[T]hough Nixon had almost certainly lost, Kennedy had yet not definitely won.” In a televised address from the Ambassador Hotel that night, with a tearful Pat by his side, Nixon told the crowd, “[A]s I look at the board here; while there are still some results to come in,…if the present trend continues, Senator Kennedy will be the next President of the United States.” This wasn’t a Nixon concession, however – as one of his aids, Herb Klein, followed Nixon to say just that. On the East coast, Kennedy’s people, watching the telecast, were furious. But JFK himself, also watching, said: “Why should he concede? I wouldn’t.” And with that, at nearly 4. a.m., JFK went to bed to await the outcome.

By 6:30 a.m. EST the next morning, at NBC-TV in New York, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, having covered the returns for12 straight hours, were still on the air, but had no official final result to broadcast. At around 11:00 a.m. EST on Wednesday morning, November 9th, Nixon still hadn’t conceded. JFK at that point was believed to be 11 electoral votes short of victory, even though at least one TV network had called the election for Kennedy earlier that morning. At about 12:30 EST, Minnesota was added to JFK’s column, which then put him over the top. Within 10 minutes or so of that announcement on TV, a telegram for JFK arrived at Hyannis Port from Nixon: “I want to repeat through this wire congratulations and best wishes I extended to you on television last night. I know that you have united support of all Americans as you lead this nation in the cause of peace and freedom during the next four years.” The Nixon telegram was also read about the same time before TV cameras by Nixon aide Herb Klein. Kennedy had defeated Nixon in one of the closest presidential elections of the twentieth century. In the national popular vote Kennedy led Nixon by just two-tenths of one percent (49.7% to 49.5%), while in the electoral vote – with 269 needed to win – Kennedy received 303 and Nixon 219.

The 1960 Kennedy campaign, in many ways, was a watershed in modern political campaigning. Kennedy and his team broke the mold of what had gone before and set a new style that blended both old and new, tapped into popular culture (e.g., Sinatra’s Rat Pack), and made the most of television. Historian Robert Dallek has stated that no one has yet created a new template the way Kennedy did.

What follows below is an abbreviated timeline of JFK’s campaigning in 1960 – from the primaries of early 1960, through the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in July, to the final fall campaign, September through election day. The left hand column includes a shorthand listing of known campaign stops, speech titles or general topics, meetings, endorsements, and related press and other activities during 1960. The right hand column includes related photos, magazine covers, newspaper clips and other items from the 1960 campaign. Additional photos and campaign information appear below the timeline, in “Sources, Links & Additional Information” at the bottom of this article.

Jan 2, 1960: Newsreel title screen for story about JFK’s announcement. Newsreels were then used in theaters.

Jan 14, 1960: JFK outlines his strategy for the presidency at the National Press Club in Wash., D.C. Photo, UPI.

Jan 1960: JFK & Jackie campaigning in New Hampshire.

Jan 25, 1960: Nashua Telegraph headlines suggest a favorable showing in New Hampshire after JFK and wife Jackie visited the state in January.

Feb 6, 1960: JFK makes a quick trip to Charleston, WV to file for the state’s May 10th primary election where he will face Sen. Hubert Humphrey. Kennedy, at the desk of State Secretary Joe Burdette, is talking with the press. At left is Neil Boggs of WSAZ. Photo, WV State Archives.

Feb 8, 1960: JFK arriving in Roseburg, Oregon, where he is met by a local delegation that includes Edward Murphy (c), his Douglas County campaign manager, and State Rep. W.O. Kelsey (r). Photo, The Oregonian.

Feb 17, 1960: JFK, at the Hotel Retlaw in Fond du Lac, WI, where a large photo of his likeness was mounted behind him, spoke on the topic of “Water Pollution,” noting that in 1959 the beaches of Milwaukee had been closed because the water was unsafe and unhealthy.

JFK, on a winter visit to Manchester, NH, greets student supporters at St. Anselm’s College who have brought along a donkey, symbol of the Democratic Party.

Los Angeles Times headline announces JFK and Nixon victories in the March 8, 1960 New Hampshire primary.

Vying presidential hopefuls in the 1960 Wisconsin Democratic primary, Humphrey & Kennedy, shown on the March 28, 1960 cover of ‘Life’ magazine as they compete for, among other interests, the dairy farm vote.

March 30, 1960: Campaigning early a.m. at the Manitowoc Shipyards in Wisconsin, JFK greets arriving workers and brothers, Ralph and Berlin Schroeder.

April 3rd, 1960: JFK watching a TV playback of an earlier TV appearance in Milwaukee, Wisconsin leading up to the April 5th Wisconsin primary. AP photo.

April 5, 1960: JFK & team working the phones on WI primary night. Behind JFK from left: Pierre Salinger, Kenny O’Donnell and Larry O’Brien. RFK is on the extreme right.

April 1960: As JFK stepped off his campaign plane at the Tucson Arizona Municipal Airport, he was greeted by about 150 supporters, some waving “Viva! Kennedy” placards. He was also given a sombrero and a cowboy hat. Photo, Tucson Citizen.

April 9th, 1960: JFK, Rep. Stewart Udall, and guest enjoy a light moment during a Democratic luncheon in Tucson, AZ. Udall would later become Kennedy’s Sec. of the Interior. Tucson Citizen photo.

April 1960: JFK campaigning in rural West Virginia in advance of the state's May 10th primary.

April 1960: JFK meeting with a group of coal miners near Mullens, West Virginia during a shift change while campaigning in Logan County during the West Virginia primary race.

May 1960: Part of the JFK story being disseminated during the election was Kennedy’s WWII heroics, put forward here in a “Man’s Magazine” cover story.

June 19, 1960: U.S. Rep. George McGovern, right, joins JFK on the campaign trail in Sioux Falls, S.D.

July 2, 1960: A week before the DNC, former President, Harry Truman said Kennedy was “too young” & “not ready” and charged the DNC was “rigged” in his favor.

July 9, 1960: JFK arriving in Los Angeles for the Democratic National Convention, where he is the front- runner for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

July 13th: North Carolina delegates and LBJ supporters, Gov. Luther Hodges (holding paper) and Senator Sam Ervin Jr., right, at the DNC. Rumor had it that Kennedy was slipping in his bid for the nomination, as Southern delegates battled over civil rights and other issues.

Aug 14,1960: JFK speaks at FDR Historic Home Site on 25th Anniversary of Social Security Act. Photo, NPS

Aug 14, 1960: JFK admiring bust of FDR while touring the FDR Library during his visit to Hyde Park, NY.

Aug 20, 1960: Cover for major farm conference in Des Moines, IA, with JFK& LBJ attending. JFK pledges Democratic action to raise farm income to “full parity” and “preserve family farming as a way of life.”

Aug 26, 1960: JFK waves to crowd as he leaves Cobo Hall in Detroit following speech to the VFW National Conven-tion. Photo, Tony Spina/Walter Reuther Library

Sept 16th: Crowd fills Penn Square, Lancaster, PA, to hear JFK speak. He also stopped at nearby Columbia, PA, as well as Reading, York and Lebanon, PA that day.

Poster announcing visit of JFK to the York Fair, in York, PA on September 16, 1960.

September 22, 1960: JFK, in backseat of Pontiac convertible, talks with farmer James Cox during a visit to his farm in Fort Dodge, Iowa. AP photo.

Sept 26, 1960: JFK and Richard Nixon appear in the first nationally-televised presidential debate, which many believe Kennedy won. With some 70 million viewers, that debate gave an enormous boost to Kennedy’s campaign. Up to 20 million fewer viewers watched the remaining 3 debates, in which Nixon fared better.

Sept 29: Female voter in Schenectady, NY makes her preference known. Jackie’s campaigning was limited by her pregnancy, though she made early and late campaign appearances, and was a popular and valued campaigner.

Nov 7, 1960: JFK coming into Boston with a police escort after days of campaigning throughout New England. He would make a final campaign speech at the Boston Garden and another on national TV, ending his campaign.

November 9, 1960: A beaming Jackie Kennedy and a happy JFK, during his acceptance speech at the Hyannis Armory in Massachusetts following the long election night.

Note: This listing provides a rough overview of JFK’s 1960 travel itinerary, speeches, and other activities at the listed locations. Some dates and events are “best approximations” given uncertain and/or conflicting sourcing information. Sources for many of these campaign stops are listed below along with additional photos. More detailed information on JFK’s activities at many of these locations is available at the JFK Presidential Library in Boston.

Noam Chomsky, Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and U.S. Political Culture, South End Press, 1993.

George N. Dionisopoulos; Steven R. Goldzwig, In a Perilous Hour: The Public Address of John F. Kennedy, Greenwood Press, 1995.

Seymour Hersh, The Dark Side of Camelot, Little Brown & Co., 1997.

Meena Bose, Shaping and Signaling Presidential Policy: The National Security Decision Making of Eisenhower and Kennedy, Texas A&M University Press, 1998.

[“Books on JFK” continues below “Sources”]

Sources, Links & Additional Information

A Norman Rockwell portrait of JFK appeared on the cover of the ‘Saturday Evening Post’ of Oct 29, 1960 – the Post then being one of the nation’s largest circulation magazines, and Rockwell, one of America’s most famous illustrators and portrait artists. He also did Nixon's.

JFK greeting Ohio Democratic Gov. Mike DiSalle, who after some Kennedy-team pressure, announced in Jan-uary 1960 that Ohio’s delegates would be JFK’s at DNC.

Jan 3, 1960: JFK on ‘Meet the Press’ TV show a day after he announced his candidacy. At left is Ned Brooks, the show’s moderator. AP photo.

Jan 21, 1960: JFK at a press conference in Milwaukee, WI, where he announced he would run in the state’s April 5th, 1960 primary against Sen. Hubert Humphrey. Kennedy aide, Pierre Salinger, is seen in the back-ground, far right, reading from paper. Photo, UPI.

January 24, 1960: JFK & Jackie, campaigning in Nashua, N.H., sit at local lunch counter and chat with townsfolk.

March 28, 1960: A key early test for JFK came in the Wisconsin primary of April 5th, 1960, as Newsweek asked: “Who’ll Tumble?”– Humphrey or Kennedy?”

JFK addressing a breakfast or luncheon gathering in Wisconsin prior to that state’s April 5th, 1960 primary.

April 5th, 1960: Sen. Hubert Humphrey and JFK enjoy a moment of friendly banter during tabulation of the West Virginia primary election returns, which JFK would win.

April 25, 1960: JFK campaigns in rural Logan County, West Virginia looking for support for the May 10th primary, precariously perched on a high-chair to deliver his speech. Photo, Hank Walker.

May 4th, 1960: During the West Virginia primary, JFK and Sen. Humphrey had a key televised debate over Channel 8, WCHS-TV, in Charleston, WV.

June 27, 1960: JFK addressed the Montana State Democratic Convention in Helena, and attended other events at the Marlow Theater and Civic Center. Ted Kennedy and Sargent Shriver were with JFK on this visit.

July 10th: JFK chats with sister Pat during fundraising dinner at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, with VIP guests such as Frank Sinatra (rt). Photo, L.A. Mirror-News.

Part of a 3-panel Kennedy-Johnson flyer on “human rights for every American” – to work, education, just compensation, live where he chooses, “security in sickness;” to vote, speak, read and worship as he pleases, and to be free from the terror of war – taken from a July 1960 JFK speech before the NAACP in L.A.

July 10, 1960: Hollywood star Judy Garland, center, flanked by Adlai Stevenson and JFK during fundraising event at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in L.A. during the DNC.

July 15: At the close of the DNC, JFK delivers his “New Frontier” speech at the L.A. Coliseum to an audience of 80,000. VIPs Stevenson, Humphrey and Symington are behind him as some “Kennedy Girls” look on as well.

July 19, 1960: Look magazine's story: "The Kennedys: A Family Political Machine."

Sept 6, 1960: JFK’s car in Spokane, WA is surrounded by crowds in downtown area as he campaigns with Gov. Albert D. Rosellini (L) and Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson (waving), then DNC chairman.

Sept 12, 1960: In an attempt to quell questions about his Catholic religion and a Catholic becoming president, JFK gave an eloquent and convincing speech to the Ministers' Association of Greater Houston, addressing some 600 clergy and guests, taking their questions, and generally defusing a major issue that had dogged his campaign.

Oct 14, 1960: Just before 2:00 a.m., thousands of students at the Univ. of Michigan greet JFK on the steps of the Michigan Union to hear his call for a “Peace Corps.”

Oct 24, 1960: JFK spoke before some 10,000 college students and faculty who packed the University of Illinois Quad at Urbana to hear him speak on foreign policy. It was the first political speech allowed on university property since the 1870s.

Spring 1960: During the primaries, and traveling aboard ‘The Caroline,” photographer Jacques Lowe caught Kennedy with one of his “calming props” – here holding a cigar. JFK used cigars, lit and unlit, during conversation and while working on strategy, but mostly in private. He preferred the narrower size, including one favorite, Cuba's Petit Upmann. Click for video vignette.

Nov 1960: A few days before the election, in early November, Kennedy’s campaign made a blitz of New England, bringing out tens of thousands. Here the Bridgeport, CT ‘Sunday Herald’ notes an expected turnout.

Nov 4: JFK campaigning at airport rally at Woodrum Field, Roanoke, VA, four days before the election.

Jan 20, 1961: Famous photo taken by AP’s Henry Burroughs of Jackie touching her husband’s face on Inauguration Day in the Capitol, a private moment in which she was expressing how proud she was; a moment she would later describe as “so much more emotional than any kiss because his eyes really did fill with tears.”

“Kennedy Says We Should Err On Side Of Safety In Spending For Defense,” Washington Post /Times Herald, February 21, 1960.

John H. Fenton, “Nixon Denies Kennedy Is Soft on Reds, Repudiating New Hampshire Governor; Angry Senator Asserts He Is Disgusted at ‘Smear’ — Primary Is Today; Powell Reiterates Stand in a Telegram Sent to the Vice-President…,” New York Times, March 8, 1960.